Day 9 - Monday 27th October 2008

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Before I start off about the tea, we have a confession. Remember the awards that we told you about yesterday? Well Maygo has ben proudly wearing the bright yellow Skid-mark boxer horts from her rear near side passenger window. The reason? Well we told you about the busy bustling town we went through yesterday, well it was a bit more bustling after we had passed through. Here is the true story.

Dinesh was crawling slowly through the traffic and Mal the camera man travelling with us was busy filming the chaos ahead. An elderly man appeared crossing the road balancing unsteadily a large quantity of old sacks. As he got level with Maygo's nearside he began to lose this balance. At this point I am blissfully looking out of the side window looking for navigating signs when there is a loud bang and my vision is suddenly fllled with flying sacks! Once I recovered from the shock, I looked down to find an old chap spread-eagled on the side of the road. Of course my first instinct was to get out and help although the old chap was clearly ok. However a large crowd had quickly formed and I could see many more interested passers-by making for the scene. I admit the words of the safety breifing came back to me - it s not uncommon for the "guilty" to be dragged rom their vehicles and lynched or stoned. Many of the people now present had not seen the incident and it would appear the Johnny Foreigner in a flash Ambie had run over this poor old chap For this reason we did not want to hang around (no pun intended) plus we thought that having two partcipants publically executed on their first rally would be bad publicity for Karma. Next - another bang on the car. Luckily this time it was one of two local policemen who had seen exactly what happened, that our man tripped and fell into Maygo (not the first man to fall for her) and was "strongly advising" us to leave the scene, which we duly did, albeit very slowly! Unfortunately for us not only did this get captured on film, but Justin one of the Karma team was right behind us on his motorbike - hence the award. I admit that when he told the story at the morning breifing he made it sound quite humorous but it hasn't at the time. Our friend the sack carrier was perfectly OK to carry sacks another day, but hopefully not to headbutt passing cars without a crash helmet.

The Tea? Well words fail me, which is very unusal! I will let Dinesh try to describe the scene. Suffice to say that the sheer beauty, scale and colour of one of the world's highest tea plantations was simply stunning. THe highlight of the trip scenery wise.

Tomorrow - Fight to the finish.

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